Five Tips for Eating Out at a Restaurant for Cheap

Why does a night out cost so damn much?

Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, B-list food personality, and noted polymath and deviant. The founder of Meatopia, he will answer all your questions on meat, food, food writing, relationships, restaurants, or cooking.

How much should a decent restaurant meal cost? I'm not talking about a three-star dinner. Just a basic dinner for two with a glass of wine, in an average American city (like Milwaukee). I don't think it should be more than fifty dollars a person, for three courses including dessert (split for two), and a glass of wine or beer each. Just a get-out-of-the-house meal for my girlfriend and me. I'm not cheap—I just want to know what you think is fair.

—Rick Ortlip, Milwaukee

The Answer:

Rick, you're right. Dinner should be fifty dollars a person. Also, you should be able to have a decent apartment for a thousand dollars a month. Also, a can of Coke should cost fifty cents:

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The only problem is, that's not what those things cost. It's what they cost fourteen years ago, which is where you think you live. I do too—I am constantly amazed that the average man today has never heard of Gordon Lightfoot. But the cost of running a restaurant has zoomed up along with everything else, particularly in the past three years, as catastrophic droughts in the Midwest and the rising price of corn have pushed meat prices skyward. Add to this the typical commercial rent, even in a smallish city like Milwaukee, and you are looking at a minimum of sixty dollars just walking in the door of a middle-of-the-road suburban restaurant.

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Take Maxie's, which—for readers of this column who don't know—is hardly a trendy eatery. It has a children's menu and a happy hour with dollar-off oysters. The cocktails cost what you would pay for a bottle of Heineken in a downtown restaurant. It's not in one of the ritzier suburbs. To break it down: You start out with eleven dollars for chicken wings, twelve dollars for shrimp. If you want a plate of barbecue brisket, nobody's idea of a luxury item, that's twenty-four dollars. Pork cheeks, one of the cheapest meats known to man, is twenty dollars. The desserts are gigantic, so you can split an eight-dollar piece of cake. Assuming you're not a cheap bastard, you will give the overworked server a minimum 18 percent tip—no matter what. Milwaukee has a 6 percent sales tax, which is middle-of-the-road nationally. So by my count, a basic dinner for two people, drinking cheap-o drinks and sports bar food, is around $112.

And that's at Maxie's! If you go to one of the good restaurants, contemporary small-plate restaurants, the kind people actually make reservations for (so in your town it'd be someplace like Odd Duck or AP Bar and Kitchen, which, take my word, are about the cheapest fine-dining places in America), you're looking at around seventy or eighty dollars each, assuming you each get a dessert, an extra small plate, and something better than goulash for your main. And if you want steak, forget about it: Even the most old-school of steakhouses (like Five O'Clock) are going to hit you for $100-plus per person, because they can't hide behind brisket and pork cheeks.

Eating out costs money, even if you order cheaply, even if you live in the suburbs. That's the way it is now. And don't forget: That money doesn't cover parking, gas, condoms, breath mints, and all the other associated costs. You have it good. Odd Duck should be half again as expensive as it is; its prices are artificially depressed by its being in Milwaukee, one of the country's cheaper places to do business. I don't know what to tell you, Rick. It sucks, but nobody is getting rich off these kinds of prices, either—even a heavy-duty steakhouse makes most of its money off the bar.

I don't want this to be entirely discouraging, though. So here's a few tips for how to eat well without going bust-o, which I encourage you to use:

1. Eat at one good restaurant a week instead of two shitty ones.

You will end up actually saving money. Since there are no cheap restaurants now, even a meh dinner at your local Mexican chain is going to cost fifty bucks. Skip it, and use the money to go someplace that feels special.

2. Stick to sure bets.

If something sounds as though it might be bad—like monkfish liver or marrow poppers—don't order it. Stick to proven winners, things that are always good. Like pork cheeks.

3. Resign yourself to a life of eating pork cheeks.

There is no way to eat steak cheaply, or fresh fish, or even chicken. Half a chicken at someplace like AP is twenty-two dollars. That's okay. Pork cheeks are one of the all-time great meats. Even an average one is better than a premium loin chop, the kind you might get at Whole Foods. I could go the rest of my life without eating a center-cut pork chop. Give me the cheek every time.

4. Actually, bail on entrées.

Here's the thing about chefs, especially young and creative ones: They don't really care about the entrées. If they never served another steak or chop they would, generally speaking, be happy. All their creativity goes into the apps. So just order a couple of extra small plates. You'll all be happier.

5. Skip dessert.

You're already full. Do you really want to sit there an extra half an hour with a full stomach, distending it further with some overly elaborate concoction? You live in Milwaukee, the home of frozen custard, for God's sake.